Anastacia stared at the empty throne hall in front of her. A cold breeze had woken her up in a place she had never seen before. Hungover, cold and extremely confused, the necromancer leaned back on the black cast iron throne. “What?...” She muttered and listened to the echo bouncing off the walls. Unable to remember anything from the previous night, she had no idea what chain of events had led to her current situation.
Part of the hall’s ceiling had collapsed and made a massive, gaping hole that let in both sunlight and freezing air, lighting the room just enough for Anastacia to see her surroundings. Directly in front of the stairs leading to the throne, was a stone altar that held a small iron basin, a rusty dagger, some dried and rotten herbs as well as an opaque crystal ball held up by a crudely forged iron stand. On the other side of the altar was a ten-meter-wide pathway lined with a dusty red carpet that had fed countless moths ever since the place had been abandoned. On both sides of the carpet were a row of dark stone columns, few of which had collapsed along with the ceiling. A couple of the iron chandeliers hanging over the pathway had fallen off and rusted beyond repair.
Though obviously built for a lord or a king, the entire hall was lacking in decorations and other grandiose or frivolous aspects present in most such places. Everything was either carved from dark gray stone or cast from iron, there was no gold, no silver, no ivory, not even marble or fancy fabrics were used to liven up the somber hall.
The throne itself wasn’t much to write home about either. It was made for someone much larger than Anastacia, downright uncomfortable and incredibly cold, one of the armrests had fallen off and every edge on it was awkwardly sharp. It being marginally better than the floor was likely the only reason drunken Anastacia had chosen it as her resting place.
Anastacia rubbed her hands together to warm them up and clumsily flopped off the throne. Every movement caused her headache to go up a notch and almost made her throw up. “Well, now I know drinking isn’t worth it. That’s something, I guess.” She said and closed her eyes to stop the spinning in her head.
As far as she could tell, there was nothing living bigger than a rat anywhere within her range and only a few skeletons somewhere far below her. Though there was something odd about the skeletons, almost like they were barely bone and only slightly resonated with her powers, Anastacia chalked that up to them being almost at the limit of her range and judging by the looks of the castle, likely very old.
“Is there anyone here? Ghosts?” She asked out loud but heard no response other than her own echo.
On the wall above the throne, was the head of a massive creature that Anastacia hadn’t noticed before. It was about as big as a dragon’s head but bared an unmistakable resemblance to an insect’s head with a pair of massive pincers and a row of smaller teeth between them. The reason why she hadn’t noticed it before was that the entire head was made from stone and metal and had all other hallmarks of the simulacra. Evidently, whoever had once owned the place had killed a gigantic centipede-like simulacra and mounted its head on a wall as a trophy, as kings and such tended to do.
“Poor thing. I wonder if there are any left? I’d like to meet one, or just the one from the other day – she had legs for days.” Anastacia wondered and carefully inched her way down the dark stone steps leading to the throne.
When inspected closer, the crystal ball placed on the altar seemed to glow very dimly. Anastacia wiped some dust off it and stared at her own reflection on the cloudy white surface. Despite barely noticeable for most people, she could immediately tell that she was still under the curse by the subtle changes to her face, and could tell that it hadn’t been more than a couple of days since she had been under a table in Valor.
“Oh, mystery ball of crystal, tell me your secrets, ideally without a blood sacrifice.” She came up with an incantation and started to rub the bauble with both of her hands. To her surprise, it flickered brighter for a moment, but quickly settled back down. “Come on now, I know people who would pay for this.” She said and caressed the orb harder. It responded by flickering some more before dying down again, no matter how intense the rubbing was. The necromancer frowned and sat down next to it on the altar. “Maybe if I lick it? That does something in almost every situation after all.” She suggested to herself, but when the crystal ball flickered even without her touching it, that line of thinking was quickly scrapped.
Figuring that it was her voice that activated the magical sphere, Anastacia began to recite the first thing that came to her mind, a page from an old necromancy tome she had been forced to read countless times. “…and of the bones available in most bodies, it is the skull that provides the largest, easily accessible surface. This leads to the common misconception that it is well suited for inscribing your intentions, when in reality, both the brain and the heart are sources of power that can defy us. Even after their removal, their lingering effect remains, thusly, these areas should be avoided when possible.”
The crystal sphere kept flickering the entire time but never fully lit up. At first Anastacia wondered if it was simply broken but decided to try singing a single tone for a few seconds since the flickering appeared to be caused by certain parts of some words. At her usual age, she was never particularly gifted in singing, so the clearness and the smooth nature of her adult singing voice came as a bit of a surprise even to the necromancer herself. The crystal ball appeared to approve of her newly found vocal gifts as well, as it lit up brightly after only a couple of seconds and began to emit a tone very similar to Anastacia’s, though much more pure, as if sang by a professional vocalist. Surprised by the sound, Anastacia stopped singing and hopped off the altar to get a bit further away.
The crystal ball continued singing for a few more seconds before suddenly speaking up. “The red one visited once again, her concerns appear to grow by the day. Though I appreciate the concern and may not stand tall like in the days gone by, the baron of iron is no pushover – far from it. She warns me of her distant kin, able to phase in and out of our reality and supposedly in search of mighty beings to add to their ranks. If this is true, I certainly qualify, but the culling of my kind is naught more than distant history, as is the might of theirs. Perhaps the red one simply wishes to keep me in line with false threats?” It said with a strange singsongy voice that ringed cleaner than anything Anastacia had heard, though something about it felt familiar, as if she had heard the accent before. Whoever this ‘baron of iron’ was, Anastacia thought it was cute that he kept a voice diary.
As the crystal ball kept repeating its owner’s thoughts, Anastacia began to investigate the hall. Behind the left row of columns was something resembling a study. A few dusty tables and shelves with an odd assortment of items neatly placed on them. The necromancer could only recognize a select few, such as a curious looking set of scales with a few weights next to it. The weights themselves were made from thin iron spikes that formed a cage around a splinter of a white crystal. They appeared almost identical and weighed about the same when Anastacia compared them herself, but when placed on the scales, they were clearly distinct – as if the scales compared them in something other than weight. On the table next to them was a small box full of stones ranging from common pebbles to amazingly beautiful crystals. Curious about the purpose of the scales, Anastacia placed one of the more plain looking stones on one side of the scales and one of the strange weights on the other. Though the stone was heavier, it didn’t even budge the scales in its direction. Intrigued, the necromancer went through all the stones while listening to the baron’s diary.
“How long has it been since our lord was imprisoned by those pesky gods? Days, years, centuries, perhaps even millenia have become meaningless in my solitude. It is only recently that the red one’s visits have brought some sense of time to it. My conversations with her have confirmed something I had suspected ever since her kind struck down our lady and my brethren: I no longer feel anger, it is as if the violent and hateful thoughts we were created with simply disappeared and were replaced with something… joyous. Truly strange. Perhaps it is time I cease my retreat and look for others that survived our clash with the last white one? However unlikely that is, perhaps they have similar observations?” The baron continued through his diary while Anastacia fiddled with the scales.
“Well it’s nice he finally found a friend, though all the red ones I know of have exclusively been massive assholes.” The necromancer muttered and placed the last remaining crystal on the scales. Though small, the blue tinted stone was comparable to three weights at once. There truly seemed to be no rhyme or reason to how the scale worked. Anastacia took out her enchanted knife and placed it on the scale to see if it could measure something besides rocks, and apparently it was roughly equivalent to one of the ‘lighter’ weights. “Neat.” She shrugged and moved on to look at the other items on the shelves next to the table.
Many of them seemed to be various bits and pieces of simulacra, which the baron obviously had been interested in. He had even managed to collect five of the small cylindrical cores that powered the ancient machines. Tempted to take a few, Anastacia fiddled with one before placing it back down. She knew how to get them if she needed some anyway, and there was only so much room in her pockets.
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The other side of the hall was largely covered in rubble from both the roof and the collapsed columns, but what had survived seemed to be a small indoor garden. A few dozen pots with dry soil in them had been lined by the wall. In the past, they probably had a variety of herbs growing in them, but whatever had been there had died and rotted away long ago. At one end of the pot row was a large barrel that didn’t have a top. Anastacia peeked in only to get disappointed by the cobwebs and dust built up inside.
The crystal ball started reciting another entry from the diary. “It appears that the red one’s concerns were not unfounded after all, for a great chasm of amethyst light has appeared in the sky above my keep. Unfortunate timing on all accounts, this interruption to my studies is truly a disaster. Hopefully it is possible to lessen collateral damage by retreating into the mines. If nothing else, they will serve as a convenient grave for my unwanted guests.” After repeating the last line, the light in the crystal ball died for good, likely meaning that it had come to the end of the recordings.
Anastacia stopped looking around and returned to the altar. “So that’s it then? Maybe he went to join the red one so they could deal with whatever the issue was? …Yeah that’s probably it…” Anastacia sighed.
While investigating, she had forgotten that she had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there. Looking for an exit was probably the next thing to do. As far as her options went, there were exactly two: a large door directly opposite to the throne and a smaller, though still bigger than normal one to the left. Based on past experiences with throne rooms, Anastacia chose the larger one and walked over to see if she could get it open. Somehow, halfheartedly tackling it was enough to loosen the rusted hinges that let out a terrifyingly loud creak as the door slowly swung open.
The intense sunlight aimed directly at the door and Anastacia’s bloodshot eyes immediately sent her back a few steps until she could get used to it and the gusts of cold wind rushing inside. Though freezing, the fresh air immediately made the necromancer feel better when she stepped outside into the garden, that is, if you can call a large courtyard full of countless rusted iron statues covered in dead vines and weeds a garden. Between the statues ran a paved path that had been similarly overtaken by dead vegetation, which led to a massive gate in a gigantic wall of almost black iron, that would have easily towered over the walls to Valor itself. Along with some impassable looking mountains and cliffsides, the wall surrounded the relatively humble looking keep that had been build directly into the mountainside. The keep Anastacia had found herself from only appeared to consist of the throne hall and whatever had been dug inside the mountain itself. There were no little huts for servants or stables for horses, so whoever the baron was, he had indeed lived in solitude.
Anastacia stepped on the path and followed it for a bit before stopping to take a better look at one of the statues. She tore off some of the vines and revealed the rusted surface of the statue. She had already noticed that they all appeared vaguely human, but now that she could see what they truly were, she had to take a step back. Each of the statues appeared to be a person that had been covered with molten iron and just left there to decay. Being partly at the mercy of the elements, the bodies themselves had long since decayed beyond the point where Anastacia could even sense them, but the horrifying screaming expressions of the people inside had remained unchanged. Many of the statues were holding swords, axes and other weaponry that were now deeply embedded into the iron. On some of them Anastacia could make out armor as well, so whatever these people had been up to, it probably wasn’t just a friendly visit to their neighbor. All together the garden must have had well over a thousand of these statues, some alone, some standing in larger groups and stuck together with metal.
“Well that’s proper fucked.” Anastacia mumbled to herself and continued onwards on the path.
The absurd height of the iron wall made the necromancer feel even smaller than usual when she got close to it, and the gate started to look less and less promising as an exit when she realized that she’d have to somehow open it as well.
Packed against the wall were some more statues that had clearly been desperately trying to escape from their fate and piled up over one another. The wall itself was almost completely featureless and the gate was the only thing in it that could even be considered a detail, but against the plain and utilitarian theme of both the keep and the wall, the gate was incredibly detailed. Cast from iron, of course, it depicted a large snake-like creature with wings that spanned the entire width of the gate and loomed over the rest of the scene. In the neck of the creature was a single arrow that had cracked its scales pretty badly. Directly below it was a woman whose eyes and hair were covered by a mask with no apparent slits to see through. Smiling welcomingly and having her arms wide open, the woman seemed almost like she was inviting Anastacia towards the gate. In one hand she was holding an intricate looking mace and in the other, a skull that still had a spine hanging from it. While the woman appeared cheerful, she was clearly being strangled by two skeletal hands that appeared from behind her. Below these two were an army of assorted looking beings, though varying in size and shape, all of them appeared to be equipped for battle and kneeled to the snake and the woman.
“Well what you’ve done here, is put the picture on the inner side of the gate. If you had impressed people with your metalworking skills while they were outside, maybe you wouldn’t have had to melt so many of them – just a thought.” Anastacia said and marveled at the scene on the gate. “So how do I open you up?”
She looked around for a lever or a crank that could operate the massive gate, but nothing like that was anywhere in sight. In the hopes of finding a secret button to activate the gate’s mechanism, Anastacia started poking the wall near it, but it soon proved itself to be a pointless endeavor.
“Maybe on the gate itself?” She wondered and turned her attention to the patterns cast on the metal gate.
The snake creature and the woman below it were far above Anastacia’s reach, and even if the original inhabitant of the keep was three times taller than her, he would have had to tiptoe to reach either of them; it was safe to assume that if there was a mechanism to be found in the gate, it was hidden somewhere among the ranks of the kneeling army. Many of the beings depicted were nothing like any living creature Anastacia knew of, and any of them would have qualified as a monster to any reasonable person. Some had more arms or legs than necessary, others donned wings in various shapes and numbers. Horns and antlers were common among the creatures as well, and a few even had an extra head on their shoulders. Though rare, there were a few human-like soldiers to be found as well, and it was one of them that stood out from the rest. While the rest of the army kneeled, a single heavily armored soldier stood straight and held up a sphere, offering it to the two beings above them – a sphere that looked awfully like a button, with a small hole in the middle of it.
Only barely able to reach it, Anastacia carefully pressed on the sphere and felt that it had a tiny bit of give, and with every attempt it moved slightly deeper as the rust and dirt lodged into the mechanism came loose. Suddenly feeling a sharp sting on her fingertip, Anastacia jumped away from the gate and insulted it for having the gall to betray her like that. While busy worrying about the tiny cut on her finger, she almost missed the quick pulse of light blue light patterns that briefly spread from the spot she had touched.
“Wait! I know what you are!” The necromancer exclaimed and dashed back into the keep. This was not the first time she had hurt herself by sticking her finger into a strange-looking hole, both the now missing simulacrum prince and the machine fortress she had briefly visited had something extremely similar to the mechanism on the gate. Once back inside, she grabbed one of the simulacra cores from the shelves near the scale and ran back to the gate. After taking a second to catch her breath, Anastacia slid the core into the slot on the gate and took a step back as the light patterns spread to every corner of the gate. While she didn’t necessarily grasp exactly how remarkable it was that someone had reverse engineered the technology and magic required to operate the ancient simulacra, Anastacia was certainly impressed. “Open?” She requested.
With a series of mechanical sounds and a ground shaking thump, the gate slowly lifted up and allowed the necromancer to leave the morbid garden behind and step out into the shallow caldera the keep was located in. Immediately after leaving the keep’s premises, Anastacia was surprised to see two things; firstly, Emilia and young Gilbert rushing towards her as quickly as they could, which was a welcome sight considering she still had no idea where in the world she was, but the second one was far less so, as it happened to be a large army that seemed to be approaching her as well. Complete with siege equipment, cavalry, and possibly a couple of mages, the army was a bit over half thousand men strong and marched under an orange banner Anastacia didn’t recognize.
“Hey guys. What’s up with the soldiers and such?” Anastacia greeted her friends when they finally reached her.
Emilia put her hand on Anastacia’s shoulder and squeezed with a bit more force than the necromancer expected. “You… don’t remember?” The priestess asked while trying to calm her breathing.
“Well I was kind of drunk, so I have pretty much no idea where we are, what happened or why I woke up in a castle.” Anastacia shrugged and pointed at the gate she had just walked through.
“Damnit, Anna! Let’s just take cover in-“ Emilia exclaimed but was interrupted by the thundering roar of a war horn.
A slightly portly man with an expensive set of armor and a well groomed pure white horse rode forth from the ranks, followed by two soldiers, one carrying a banner and the other blowing into the war horn a few more times before all three of them stopped about thirty meters away from the necromancer and her party.
The portly officer took out a scroll and rolled it open to read it. “Anastacia the Aberrant, Queen of goblins, Lady of ice and fire, Witch of the iron keep! For your many crimes against Duke Filippos Beppo the Third and his people, his grace has seen it fit to declare war upon you!” He declared with a mighty bellowing tone, handed the scroll off to one of his lackeys and waited for the necromancer’s answer.